


Spring Equinox

by chiiyo86



Category: Original Work
Genre: Elemental Magic, F/F, Fantasy, Kissing, Magic Worldbuilding, Magical Intoxication, Rituals, Weather Magic, estranged friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-16 20:59:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17553110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiiyo86/pseuds/chiiyo86
Summary: After tonight's ceremony of the Equinox, Annika will be the new Spring Witch. The responsibilty doesn't scare her as much as facing her former friend does - especially since that friend is none other than Lieanne, the Winter Witch.





	Spring Equinox

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scintilla10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scintilla10/gifts).



> So, I kind of went overboard with the worldbuilding for this (a lot of details didn't even make it into the story), and I really, really hope it works for you. Enjoy the treat!

_Today is the day_.

This was Annika’s first thought upon waking up, even before she opened her eyes. A soft breath of wind caressed her face and she sighed with it, her own breathing becoming one with the breeze. Sunlight warmed her skin. Any other day she would have jumped out of her bed, as she was one of those morning persons whom others called annoying, but her usual enthusiasm at the start of a new day was doused by the fact that _today was the day_.

Someone pounded on her door. “Annika!” Mareike called. “Get up! We have to be ready to leave in an hour.”

Annika sighed again, this time in deep, soul-crushing weariness. “I’m awake,” she tried to say, but her voice came out croaky from disuse and she had to repeat herself. “I’m awake! I’m getting ready!”

“You better be,” was Mareike’s response. “Today may be the most important day in your life.”

As usual, Mareike was being dramatic. Annika would have to go through today’s Spring Equinox ceremony several more times again—fifteen times, to be precise. It was just that today was the first. But before she could muster an answer for Mareike, she heard the echo of her footsteps fade away. Mareike never thought that Annika might have anything of importance to add to a conversation.

She finally opened her eyes and gazed through the arched openings that overlooked the forever blooming orchards of Frühlingsgarten. The tall, sinewy columns that supported the arches had twining wines of odorant honeysuckle wrapped around them. Annika slipped out of bed and, only clad in her nightgown, stepped through one of the openings. The stone floor of a patio disappeared under a carpet of grass and wild flowers. Annika had moved into the Spring Witch’s room only one month ago, but this was her favorite part about it: she loved how her room blurred into the orchards with no clear delimitation between inside and outside. As an apprentice, she’d slept in a simple room with whitewashed walls and only one window that stuck when she tried to open it. 

In between the tree trunks she could only catch a glimpse of the rainbow-colored shimmering of the barrier that protected the Königreich. It never failed to draw her to it, and today the attraction was greater than ever. Annika walked barefooted across the orchards, white and red petals from the apple, pear and quince blossoms raining over her head, until she was standing right in front the barrier. She reached out and brushed its surface, the thrum of power numbing her fingers. All of the Witches’ Courts were appended to the barrier as a matter of course; once Annika would be fully instated as the Spring Witch and could draw from the power of the Edelstein, her job wouldn’t just be to sustain Spring, but also to maintain the barrier. She would exist in a state of symbiosis with it, feeding on it, refining its magic through the Edelstein and then sending it back to the barrier. Or so went the theory, at least—no one quite knew how the barrier had been made by the Königreich’s Founders over eight hundred years ago, and for a few decades it had been showing signs of weakening. The Seasons had become more erratic, and less and less people were born with the gift of life and could become magic users. One day, the prophets of doom were fond of saying, the barrier would shatter or dissipate, and no one knew what lay behind. 

Annika shook herself from her dark thoughts. The barrier wasn’t likely to fall today, and she would get a scolding from Mareike if she wasn’t ready on time. She went back into her room and traded her nightgown for a simple robe of blue linen. She would dress much more elaborately for tonight, but she assumed the preparations would take place at the Lebensbaum. There was no use to putting on a nice dress when she would be traveling for the better part of the day.

At the breakfast table, she found that her nervousness had increased to the point that she couldn’t take a bite, despite the appetizing display of fresh fruits, bread warm from the oven, oatcakes, honeycombs, and jars of dandelion and honeysuckle jam. She could only pick at the blueberries and the redcurrants. _What am I so worried about?_ she asked herself, trying to tame her anxiety by dissecting it. The ritual was fairly simple. She was light on her feet and wasn’t afraid to trip on the hem of her dress during the dance. Was she worried that her body would reject the power of the Edelstein? She’d been training for eight years, four years at the Akademie and then four more at the Spring Court. If she were unfit for becoming the Spring Witch, then someone would have noticed it sooner. Light knew that Mareike wouldn’t have stood for a weak apprentice. 

_Lieanne will be there. As the Winter Witch, she’ll be the one to pass the Edelstein onto you_.

The sudden thought made Annika’s stomach twist and her face heat up. She’d been good at avoiding thinking about Lieanne, but denial wouldn’t help her tonight, when she’d have to face her. 

“Are you feeling sick?” Mareike asked, putting her cup of nettle tea down on the table. Coming from her, it sounded more like an accusation than like a concerned enquiry. “You’re nervous. You shouldn’t be. Being nervous isn’t going to help you tonight.”

If Annika’s hadn’t been nervous already, although not for the reasons Mareike assumed, then she certainly would have been now. “I’m fine,” she said.

“Let me give you something,” Mareike said.

“Mareike… Ehrwürdige Mareike, please, I don’t need anything,” Annika said pleadingly, hoping that the use of her proper title would appease Mareike.

Mareike was already in movement; she’d stood up and disappeared through the archway that led into the kitchen. Most of the time, Mareike was adept at stillness. She could sit in a chair by an open window for hours, looking at the birds flitting in the trees’ foliage, and Annika would swear that she’d stopped breathing. When Mareike made a decision, though, she sprang into action like a wild cat jumping on its prey. Annika could hear her move around the kitchen, bumping pots and cups, opening and slamming cupboard doors. She came back a few minutes later and held out to Annika a cup that contained a foul-looking and smelling beverage. 

“Moss from the Lebensbaum,” Mareike announced. “It’ll do you good.”

“You said you would stop buying those at the black market,” Annika complained. “I bet the moss isn’t really from the Lebensbaum, and even if it were, you know it’s _illegal_.”

Mareike gave her a steely look. “You think that I can’t tell the Lebensbaum’s moss apart from ordinary tree moss?” she asked, her voice raising as she spoke. “By the tree, I was Spring Witch before you were even born, little girl! As for real moss being illegal, well, I don’t care about Königin Alwina’s inane edict. I was Spring Witch before _she_ was, too, and the idea that something as powerful as the Lebensbaum would be hurt by people taking small amounts of its moss is simply ridiculous!”

Annika wanted to reply, but she bit it back. She’d heard Mareike’s rant before, and she wasn’t sure that her desire to disagree didn’t stem from mere contrariness. She drank the beverage without another word of protest; it tasted like decomposing plants and didn’t make Annika feel any less apprehensive. Instead, she now felt jittery _and_ a little nauseous. But the day wouldn’t stop for her nerves, and she went back to her room to ready herself for the journey to come. Servants trotted up and down the echoing corridors, in a rush to finish packing in time. The whole building vibrated with anticipation, as if in sync with Annika’s mood. 

The Lebensbaum and the Capital were only fifty miles from Frühlingsgarten—nothing in the Königreich was further than fifty-five miles from the Lebensbaum—but since half of the Spring Court were coming with Annika to escort her at the Equinox celebration, their long trail of carriages would probably take as long as twelve hours to get there. Fortunately, Annika could sleep anywhere, even when her stomach churn with uneasiness. She spent the first half of the journey sleeping with her head pillowed on the cloak she’d rolled into a ball, lulled by the rocking motion of the carriage. 

When she woke up, she found that Mareike had fallen asleep too. It was so rare for Annika to see her sleeping that she couldn’t help gawking at the sight for a moment. Mareike slept with her back ramrod straight, her hands folded in her lap and her head leaning against the back of her seat. With her barely lined face and her iron-gray hair pulled tight in a severe bun, she looked like a stature carved from a rock. She didn’t snore, disappointingly, but her breathing was deep and slow, and she gave every sign of being sound asleep. Annika briefly considered this unique opportunity for a prank, but this wasn’t the right day to make Mareike furious with her. 

To distract herself, she peered between the curtains that obscured her window. The verge of the road was still speckled with patches of frost, but by the end of the day the arrival of Spring would have melted them entirely. A few clouds marred the purple of the sky, but it was otherwise a beautiful day, fit for the occasion. Annika idly wondered if this was what the real sky, the one that existed outside of the barrier, looked like. Although, of course, there might not be any sky on the outside; it could be that the Finsternis, which had destroyed the rest of the world and forced the Königreich’s Founders to erect the barrier, had also ruined the real sky. The fragmented texts that were left from before the Königreich’s founding were unclear on the exact nature of the Finsternis. The only certainty was that it meant ‘darkness’ in the old tongue—but was it a natural or magical catastrophe? A person? A monster? In the same vein, no one knew what the world outside the barrier looked like now. The official story was that it was a desolate wasteland, where nothing grew and the air was so noxious that it would kill you after a few breaths. It was just a guess that was as good as any other, though.

Speculating on what lay outside the barrier was a favorite past time of the students at the Akademie during the long Winter nights. They would gather in one of the common rooms, by the fireplace, and swap stories for hours. The goal was to scare your year mates with your description of the outside world, the thrill of fear being made keener by the fact that one day, you might just find out whether you were right or not. Some said that the world was shrouded in never-ending darkness; some speculated that the lands roamed with monsters, each more terrifying than the next. Or maybe, others whispered, there was nothing beyond the barrier but a bleak void that held no light, no life, no air. 

For no other reason than to stand out, Annika sometimes liked to say when it was her turn that an advanced, flourishing civilization had arose from the ashes of the old one, and that they all puzzled at this odd little stretch of land that was hidden under a magical dome. Everyone groaned at her when she did that, telling her that she was completely missing the point of the game. Lieanne, who hated it when something didn’t make sense, would point out that an advanced civilization would for sure have the magical knowledge to take down the dome and see what was under it. 

_Don’t think about Lieanne._

Their carriage was now negotiating its passage on the narrow bridge that arched over the Einzelfluss, the Lonely River, an artificial waterway made by Founder Käthe Weyrauch. It ran from North to South, from the Winter Witch’s Court in Winterland to the Summer Witch’s Court in Sommerfeld, then disappeared underground when it reached the barrier. Like the state of the outside world, what happened to the river underground was something people could only speculate about. Beyond the river lay the small town of Riverling, whose inhabitants had crowded on both sides of the road to cheer at Annika.

“Hail, Jungfer Annika of Frühlingsgarten!” they were shouting, throwing at her carriage scraps of colored fabric that were supposed to represent petals. “Praise to the Spring Witch!”

Annika let the curtain drop and sank back into her seat, her face hot. She saw that Mareike had woken up and was watching her with one of those cool, considering looks of hers.

“They’re manifesting their joy at seeing you,” she said.

“It’s not me they’re rejoicing in,” Annika said. “They’re happy about the return of Spring. _I_ haven’t done anything yet.”

“But _you_ ’re Spring, now,” Mareike said. “Just like the other Witches that have preceded you.”

Annika wished that Mareike didn’t feel like she had to cheer her up, because she always did it in a way that made Annika feel worse than before. Despite this, she managed to fall asleep again, and the next time she woke up she could see the Lebensbaum in the distance. The Lebensbaum was a tree only in the same sense that the sky was like a ceiling. It was so wide that it took over one hour for one to walk around it, and so tall that its crown was out of anyone’s sight. According to the legends, the Founders had made it spring from the ground with the same lost magic that had created the barrier and built the Städte. It was thought that its foliage merged with the higher part of the barrier and served as its keystone. 

Over the centuries, people who wanted to test that theory had tried to climb up the Lebensbaum, but no one had ever made it down alive—sometimes the broken bodies of the climbers were found on the ground, and sometimes they simply vanished, never to be seen again. Annika used to joke to Lieanne that there must be a whole other civilization that lived up there, in the higher levels of the tree, and that the lost climbers had simply been invited to stay. The Lebensbaum’s ascension had been forbidden for at least sixty years, but that didn’t stop daredevils from trying anyway. The Königin had to maintain constant patrols around the tree to watch out for climbers, as well as for shoddy apothecaries who wanted to collect the Lebensbaum’s moss, bark or sap for the kind of potions that Mareike bought at the black market.

The Lebensbaum was planted on top of a low hill, and in between its sprawling web of gnarled roots a city had grown. The city was considered as the capital city of the Königreich, by virtue of being tacked on to the Lebensbaum where the König or the Königin lived, and where the Rat met. It wasn’t like the Städte, though, which had been magically created by the Founders. The squat sandstone buildings with cypress wood rooftops that Annika could see clustered between the roots like bunches of mushrooms had been built through more mundane means. Here too people lined the roads to throw multicolored confetti at the procession. Some even tried to get closer to the carriage but were pushed back by the Königin’s guards. The hubbub of their shouts and cheers overwhelmed Annika, even causing a small nugget of fear to bloom at the pit of their stomach. _They’re just happy_ , she tried to tell herself. _They don’t want to hurt you—quite the contrary, in fact._ That last part didn’t manage to reassure her; people’s worship was just as scary to her as their ill intents. 

They were getting closer to the Lebensbaum and Annika could see the latticed openings cut out in the wrinkled, red-brown bark of the tree. Some of them were lit up and looked like yellow eyes watching the procession arrive. Had someone ever wondered whether the tree had a consciousness? What if it had been looking down at them for centuries and despaired at their foolishness? The thought both fascinated and scared Annika. The tree’s roots spread underground for miles around the gigantic trunk, and she imagined them as tendrils informing the tree of what was going on in the Königreich. They were probably driving over one of those roots at that very moment—Annika shivered and gave herself a stern injunction to keep her wild imagination in check. She couldn’t afford to behave like a fearful mouse for her first apparition as the Spring Witch.

They drove through the Lebensbaum’s large wooden gates; Annika got off her carriage and was led to her rooms by a young servant who looked flustered to be addressing the Spring Witch. Annika tried to make her feel more comfortable by smiling a lot and speaking to her as she would have to one of her fellow students at the Akademie, but this only seemed to confuse and alarm the girl even further.

“Know your place,” Mareike whispered to her as they followed the servant through the dark, meandering corridors that burrowed inside the massive trunk of the Lebensbaum. “You’re the Spring Witch.”

Annika clenched her jaw and said nothing. She was the Spring Witch, or at least she would be tonight, but until a month ago she’d just been Annika, Witch apprentice, living a strict life of training and chores. None of her studying and practicing had prepared her for becoming something other than herself, for having people look at her with awe and reverence before she’d even done anything noteworthy. She knew the importance of the task that would be assigned to her, but she hadn’t expected other people’s reaction to it. For the past eight years she’d lived mostly cut off from the rest of the Königreich, first at the Akademie and then at the Spring Court.

Her room for the duration of the Spring Equinox’s festivities was round and dark, the walls the color of the Lebensbaum’s red-brown wood. Brown-and-gold tapestries were hung on them and rugs of the same colors covered the floor. There was only one round window, positioned too high for Annika to look through it. The etching of a tree with twisted roots and naked branches rising to the sky, the symbol of the Lebensbaum, was sprawled over the whole surface of the ceiling. It was a nice room, but it felt claustrophobic to Annika, who was used to the wide rooms, the vast windows, the walls of light-colored stone, and the enclosed gardens of Frühlingsgarten. Mareike left, but Madleen and Saskia, two girls that Annika knew from the Akademie and who had joined the Spring Court to become the Spring Witch’s aides, joined Annika to help her prepare.

“For her hair, I was thinking that triple braided buns would look very pretty,” Saskia said to Madleen, picking up a lock of Annika’s dark hair as though she was a doll to play with.

Madleen approved of the hairstyle, and Annika honestly didn’t care. For the next couple of hours, she was a thing in the hands of her two aides. She had to drink bitter dandelion and burdock cordials to cleanse her blood. She was scrubbed and bathed, and lotion was applied to make her skin smoother; her hair was washed, brushed, and perfumed, then braided so tightly that it made her scalp ache. By the time they helped her fit into her dress, night was falling and they had to light the braziers that had been disposed in the room at the four cardinal points. 

Mareike knocked on the door and came in just as they were seeing to the last touches. Annika was given a stern up-and-down look, then Mareike said, “You look very proper.”

Annika turned back to the stand mirror that was placed next to the window. She wore a dress of green silk faille; it was a moss green near the v-neckline, then lightened into light lime green at the hem. The tight sleeves widened at the wrist and became long and flowing, and the skirt was shaped like a bell, reaching all the way down to the floor. Fresh flowers trimmed the fabric and were braided into her hair, and she wore an olive-green peridot stone as a pendant. She felt constricted, overdressed, and her throat was now so tight with panic that she could barely swallow. Saskia and Madleen kept fussing with the flounce at the sleeves, smoothing the skirt of her dress, and pinning wild strands of hair that had escaped her buns until all she wanted to do was to scream at them. 

“Leave us alone, girls,” Mareike told Saskia and Madleen.

She stepped up to Annika and put her hands on her shoulders. “You’re afraid, child,” she said.

Annika cast a glance around her and saw that Saskia and Madleen had already slipped out of the room.

“I’m—”

Mareike tutted at her. “Don’t try to pretend with me. Of course you’re afraid. Every Spring Witch is before her first Equinox. Light, I was too,” she added gruffly, as if the admission cost her. “But you’ll perform adequately, because I haven’t raised you to fail.”

At any other time, Annika would have rolled her eyes at the backhanded way Mareike imparted words of comfort, but the circumstances were so peculiar that she was touched in spite of herself. Mareike had her flaws, but she’d been there to mentor Annika when the person whose role it was, her predecessor as the Spring Witch, all but forgot that Annika existed half of the time. Lotte was a nice enough woman, but she had her head in the clouds and always looked at Annika as though wondering what she was meant to do with her. As soon as her last Spring had ended, Lotte had packed her things and left Frühlingsgarten without looking back. She was now cooped in some tower at the Akademie, neck-deep in books, researching old magic and spinning theories about the Lebensbaum and the barrier—a noble endeavor, but Annika couldn’t help but resent Lotte for her neglect. If it hadn’t been for Mareike, Annika would have been left to her own devices trying to figure out her training.

“Ehrwürdige,” she said, then took one of Mareike’s hands and gave her knuckles a kiss. “Thank you for everything.”

Mareike tolerated it for a second before she cleared her throat and snatched her hand back. “Now, now,” she said. “We wouldn’t want to have red eyes for the festivities.”

When she turned her back, Annika stuck out her tongue at her.

\---

The Equinox festivities were to take place in the Throne Hall, which had been carved in the heart of the Lebensbaum at ground level. Annika was announced by a booming man in a brown-and-gold livery when she entered the hall with her retinue from the Spring Court. All the heads turned to her and the crowd intoned as one, “All hail Jungfer Annika, the Spring Witch!”

Annika took a deep breath before giving them her most gracious smile and bowing her head. She kept her head lowered for a moment so she couldn’t see everyone’s eyes on her, and only when she heard the renewed murmur of conversations did she allow herself to move. The Throne Hall was a vast circular room, whose high ceiling was hidden behind the myriad of colorful floating lights that flitted over their heads like a cloud of fireflies. The floor was covered with copper slate tiles and the walls were of rough, unpolished wood, etched with patterns of snowflakes, flowers, leaves, and tree branches, as well as carved statues of the Founders and of famous Witches that looked like they had burst out of the walls. Recesses and alcoves, half-hidden behind banners in the colors of the Städte, allowed the guests some measure of intimacy. At the back of the room, a throne of mahogany sat atop an elevated platform, covered in textured and layered patterns, with carved flowers on each of its broad feet. In it sat Königin Alwina, their current ruler, who was probably the one maintaining the floating lights over their heads. Next to the throne there was a smaller, plainer chair for Alwina’s consort Einhard, and on the wall behind the two chairs was another etching of the naked tree that represented the Lebensbaum, embedded with blue moonstone, yellow amber, peridot, and orange-brown citrine. 

As Annika walked around the hall, wild flowers bloomed in her wake. They would remain only for a few minutes before sinking back into the floor, because they were only there for show and Annika didn’t want to waste too much energy on them. Life at the Witches’ Courts was fairly simple, or at least it was at the Spring Court, but the Equinox and Solstice celebrations were occasions to charm and dazzle the population with parlor tricks—anything to reassure people that the magic the Königreich relied on was still present. This was the reason for the magic lights, even though it would have been just as easy to arrange braziers around the room. This was why Heiko, the Summer Witch, walked with a halo of warm sunlight over his head, and why Neele, the Autumn Witch, had red and yellow dead leaves spiral around her. And Lieanne…. After wandering around the Throne Hall for a while, Annika could admit to herself that she had been looking for Lieanne. But the Winter Witch was notably absent from the crowd. 

“Annika,” whispered Janik, one of the boys from her entourage. “Your parents are over there.”

Annika caught Mareike’s eyes, all the way across the room, and knew that the woman wanted her to go greet her parents. 

“I hadn’t seen them,” she told Janik, which was actually true—she’d been too preoccupied with trying to find Lieanne while pretending not to. “I have to go pay my respects.”

If she hadn’t noticed her parents there in the crowd, it should have been impossible for them to miss her entrance. They could have come to her, but instead they’d remained with a group of people who wore the colors of the four Städte: silver and white for Rösten, black and amber for Dunrick, blue and yellow for Markstedt, and green and gold for Kreuzlingen, the Stadt where Annika had grown up. Annika assumed that they were representatives from the Stämme, the Städte’s ruling families, although she recognized none of them except for Niclas Holzhausen, who was a distant cousin of hers. When Annika approached the group, they all parted to free the way to her parents. 

“Mother, Father,” Annika said. “It’s good to see you.”

Roswitha and Albrecht Holzhausen nodded at her in greeting. Annika’s mother was a tall, broad-shouldered woman with Annika’s dark hair and complexion, while her father was smaller, and had chestnut brown hair and a lighter skin. Roswitha had been born a Holzhausen while Albrecht had married into the Stamm, sought out for his talent as a goldsmith. They were both serious, hard-working people without an ounce of magical talent. 

“Merry Equinox, dear,” Roswitha said, giving her daughter a kiss on the cheek.

“We’re so proud of you,” Albrecht said with a warm smile. “You’ll be a splendid Spring Witch.” 

“Thank you,” Annika said, and then the three of them looked at each other awkwardly.

It wasn’t that Annika didn’t like her parents, but since leaving for the Akademie at the age of twelve, she’d only ever seen them a few times a year, for the Equinoxes and Solstices. She didn’t know them that well, was all. She wasn’t quite sure how to talk to them, and it looked like they felt the same. 

“I can’t see Ehrwürdige Lotte anywhere,” Roswitha said just when Annika was about to open her mouth to excuse herself. “Didn’t she come with you from Frühlingsgarten?”

“Ehrwürdige Lotte, um, couldn’t make it,” Annika said. Lotte _should_ have been present, but Annika had long resigned herself to not expecting anything from her predecessor and some obscure sense of solidarity made her want to cover for Lotte’s negligence in front of her parents. “She’s very busy with her research at the Akademie.”

“Oh, she’s gone to the Akademie?” her mother said. “I didn’t know that.”

“She won’t try for Königin next year, then?” her father said.

Annika had to contain a snort. Getting elected as Königin or König by the Rat was one of the positions a former Witch could try for, but her father obviously didn’t know Lotte well if he could imagine her ruling the Königreich, even just for the ten years a Königin remained in power. 

“Her research is very important,” she said instead, still valiantly trying to defend Lotte to her parents. “She’s looking into the nature of the Lebensbaum and its link to the barrier.”

“Oh, right,” Albrecht said.

The tone of his voice and the mask of polite interest on his face let Annika know that he only had a very vague notion of what she was talking about. The fact that Annika, whose gift of life was strong enough for her to become a Witch, had been born to people who had no affinity for magic had astounded everyone. Albrecht and Roswitha had sent their daughter to be educated at the Akademie out of a sense of civic duty, but Annika thought they privately estimated that too much fuss was made of magic. Albrecht was one of the few excellent craftsmen who didn’t use magic at all, which made him precious enough that Thorwald, the Haupt of the Stamm Holzhausen, had agreed to his marriage to Roswitha. Albrecht didn’t realize how much of their craft and agriculture relied on magic in a way that talent would never make up for—not to mention the barrier and the cycle of the Seasons, whose mere existence was magical in essence. 

As Annika was looking for a way to broach the topic, she was cut short by a call from the man in livery who had announced her entrance. “Weise Lieanne of Winterland!” 

Annika whirled around, making flowers bloom in a circle at the hem of her dress. Everyone intoned the same kind of greeting they’d given Annika, “All hail Weise Lieanne, the Winter Witch!”

Annika didn’t echo them, because all the breath had left her lungs and she couldn’t speak. She watched as Lieanne advanced into the hall, wearing a long blue dress with a train at the back and mesh of pearly white satin fabric overlaying the skirt. Around her neck silver chains linked together several moonstones, one of them shaped as a rain drop and resting right above the groove between her breasts. Part of her hair was done up in a crown braid while the rest was spread in loose curls over her shoulders. She left a trail of frost behind her as she walked, and Annika saw a man cross it carelessly and almost lose his balance when he slipped. A giggle bubbled up her throat, but she stifled it behind her hand. 

“When was the last time you spoke to her?” Annika heard her mother ask. “You were friends at the Akademie, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” Annika said absently. Her eyes followed Lieanne across the hall, drawn to the sight against her will. “We haven’t spoken in a long while.”

Was she supposed to go greet Lieanne? She hadn’t greeted Heiko and Neele, which might actually have been an oversight on her part, but Lieanne and her were at the heart of tonight’s ceremony. Mareike hadn’t said anything on the topic, but then she’d never seemed to approve of Annika being friendly with the future Winter Witch. The nervous flutter that had bothered Annika all day had grown into a ball of something that felt like panic. She didn’t want to talk to Lieanne; she wanted it so much that the longing threatened to choke her. 

“Excuse me,” she said to her parents. “I should—”

But Lieanne had already decided for her. She wasn’t rushing, but her path was unmistakably aiming at Annika, who wondered if she should go meet her halfway. Her indecision rooting her to the spot, she ended up waiting for Lieanne to reach her while her heart beat in her throat.

“Jungfer Annika,” Lieanne said with a deep curtsy. “Praise be to the Spring Witch.”

“Li—Weise Lieanne,” Annika said, curtsying in her turn. 

The crisp, impeccable politeness was Lieanne’s way of showing anger. Not that she was wrong to be angry—this was what part of Annika’s anxiety had been all about. She didn’t want to face her guilt at how she’d treated the best friend she’d ever had. 

When she saw that Lieanne was going to wait for her to speak first, she said, “You look—”

“Not half as beautiful as you do, Jungfer,” Lieanne said, cutting her off.

This wasn’t true. Annika thought that Lieanne was as beautiful as ever, which was infinitely more beautiful than Annika could hope to be. Lieanne’s hair was the color of pale gold, her skin white and smooth as an expanse of fresh snow, her face sharp but with delicate features, as if sculpted in a block of alabaster by lost magic. It used to give Annika a secret thrill that Lieanne was as fair as Annika herself was dark, because she liked that people could look at them together and marvel at the contrasted picture they made. But as Annika observed her former friend a little more closely, she saw that her pallor seemed more pronounced than it had been in the past, so much that her lips were colorless, and that her eyebrows and eyelashes were crusted with frost. Her collarbone was more salient and blue veins were apparent on the backs of her long, thin hands. 

Last Winter had been particular harsh, and Annika had often heard people grumble that this was because the new young Witch couldn’t handle the toll. Winter was the hardest of the Seasons to bear, and its burden was made heavier by the fact that people had little sympathy to spare for the Winter Witch. Summer had long, warm days, Autumn was harvest time, and Spring was the renewal of nature; but Winter only had cold and darkness to offer, and this bled into the way people thought of the Winter Witch. Annika had gritted her teeth through the litany of complaints all Winter. Some people would generously allow that the new Winter Witch was probably just inexperienced, but others downright accused her of incompetence, which never failed to make Annika seethe. She liked to claim loudly that she thought the Winter was particularly harsh because the barrier was failing, or she had until Mareike commanded her to stop. 

“You look tired,” Annika said to Lieanne, forgetting for a moment that they weren’t the bosom friends they’d been at the Akademie.

Lieanne’s clear eyes narrowed. “Is that so?” she said in a frosty, yet still utterly polite voice. “Well, after tonight I will finally be able to rest.”

It had probably been meant as a rebuttal, but it did make Annika feel better to think that she was going to take that burden off Lieanne’s hands—or, well, not off her _hands_. Annika’s cheeks burned as she thought about the part of the ritual that she’d managed to keep herself from reflecting on too much: that Lieanne would have to _kiss_ her to transfer the Edelstein to her. Lieanne must have had the same thought, because her pale cheeks colored with faint pink. She turned her head away, exposing the graceful line of her neck. 

A jingling sound rang out through the room, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. The rumble of conversations died down and everyone turned to the throne. Königin Alwina stood up. Her golden hair was gathered in a braided bun, with a few locks escaping from it curling on her shoulder, and it gleamed from the lights that swirled over her head. She wore an intricate gold necklace that Annika knew was one of her father’s creations and a flowing dress that shimmered with rainbow colors. She cleared her throat and silence fell over the Throne Hall.

“Summer will fade into Autumn,” she recited in a clear voice that carried easily through the hall, probably enhanced by magic. “Autumn will freeze into Winter. Winter will melt into Spring. The seasons cycle, but the Lebensbaum and the Königreich remain. Before we can rejoice in the arrival of Spring, we shall watch the dance of the Seasons. Praise be to Vater Heiko of Sommerfeld, Frau Neele of Herbstlaub, Weise Lieanne of Winterland, and Jungfer Annika of Frühlingsgarten, Witches of the Four Seasons!”

Applauses and cheers exploded around the hall, and the crowd cleared away a wide space at the center for the Witches. Her heart pounding, keenly aware of everyone’s attention, Annika walked to get into position. She had been instructed in what she was supposed to do for the ritual dance but had never rehearsed it with the other witches. The four of them placed themselves as the four corners of a square; Lieanne was facing Annika, while Neele stood in a diagonal from her and Heiko was on her left. Neele was a woman in her early thirties, which meant that she only had a few years left before she could pass the mantle of the Autumn Witch to someone else. She had done her red hair in a long, double braided plait; her dress had layers of uneven length, colored in brown, orange and red hues and she wore a pendant of yellow amber. Heiko was younger, closer in age to Annika and Lieanne; they’d in fact met at the Akademie a few years ago, and when he gave Annika a wink and a smile, she smiled back easily. He had very dark skin and tightly curled hair cropped short, and wore a sleeveless doublet of red velvet with gold brocade work adorning the front, a white clockwork shirt with a cravat, and a pair of yellow satin pants with a puffed upper leg and fitted lower leg.

“Ready?” he said to her before taking her hand.

“I’m—” Annika started, but the music that suddenly filled the room drowned the rest of her sentence. _I’m not ready_.

The music was fast at the start, chirpy like a little bird, before it slowed down into something slower and more dignified, although still upbeat. Annika and Heiko, hand-in-hand, stepped toward Lieanne and Neele, then stepped back. One step to the left, one step to the right. The music slowed again and became deeper; Heiko and Annika turned to face each other, now holding both hands. When the music suddenly quickened they swirled together until it thundered, which was their cue to split up. Annika stepped back to her initial position while Heiko stepped up again toward Neele. The Autumn Witch gave him a quick smile before taking his hands. While Neele and Heiko danced to a music that was once again joyful and upbeat, Annika and Lieanne beat time with their feet. Annika tried several times to catch Lieanne’s gaze, but Lieanne kept her eyes pointedly focused on the dancing Witches. 

The music slowed again, taking the smooth, persistent rhythm of a snow fall, and Lieanne and Neele started to dance together. Annika knotted her sweaty fingers in the fabric of her dress. She looked at the blond curls that tumbled down Lieanne’s back, at her feet that moved in time with the music, at the line of her arm, shoulder to wrist, that Lieanne held out as she danced with Neele. Eventually she tore her gaze away, feeling like she was betraying too much in front of too many people. She’d expected that seeing Lieanne again would be awkward, even upsetting, but she hadn’t anticipated that level of intensity. Four years hadn’t tempered the not quite friendly part of what she’d felt for Lieanne during the last month they’d had together at the Akademie. On the contrary, time seemed to have crystallized those feelings, purified them and hardened them like gemstones. They’d been hiding under layers of everyday concerns, but hadn’t gone away, and were now being stripped bare and exposed.

“Hey, Annika!” she heard Heiko whisper, which startled her out of her thoughts.

When she looked up, she saw that Lieanne was watching her, one hand held out for her. Annika swallowed; it was now time for the most crucial part of tonight’s ritual. 

“Good luck!” Heiko whispered again.

The distance between Annika and Lieanne was short, but it took an eternity to cross. Annika couldn’t hear the music anymore, as it was being drowned under the pounding of her heart. She took Lieanne’s hands in hers and felt the chill of her skin penetrate her own flesh to the bones. She shivered.

“Winter melts into Spring,” Königin Alwina announced, her voice echoing in the vast hall. 

Lieanne leaned forward slightly, then stopped when she saw that Annika wasn’t moving at all. “Annika!” she whispered sharply, giving Annika’s hands a little tug. “Whatever else we might feel, it’s our duty to do this.”

 _Whatever else we might feel_. Annika bit on her tongue not to reply anything. Her eyes prickled. She leaned into Lieanne and pressed her mouth to hers, at the same time exhaling a breath she’d been holding. It was rather a simplification to say that the ritual to pass on the Edelstein involved a kiss. Neither Annika nor Lieanne made a kissing motion; their lips merely touched, their mouths opening slightly. Lieanne’s warm breath made Annika’s lips tingle. She had closed her eyes without meaning to and she kept them tightly shut, waiting for Lieanne to give her the Edelstein that she’d kept in her chest all Winter. The word ‘Edelstein’ meant ‘gem’ in the old tongue, but it wasn’t really a stone, at least not in the ordinary sense. It was supposed to be a part of the barrier that Founder Anke Holzhausen, whom Annika had been named after, had severed from it and given to the first Witch, back when one Witch took care of all the Seasons. Since the Edelstein was always held inside one of the Witches’ bodies—except during the ritual, when the two Witches would be so close to each other that no one could get a good look—no precise description existed of it. It was bright and warm; it was energy, pure, unadulterated magic. Annika knew nothing else about it, and she was about to welcome it into her body.

Even through closed eyelids, Annika perceived a brightness so intense it hurt her eyes. She could feel the Edelstein’s warmth, first as a gentle caress, then as heat that burned fiercer by the second until it was almost painful. Then it was _inside_ her, burning her tongue and scorching her throat on the way down. Annika tried to moan, but she couldn’t produce any sound. She tried to move away but Lieanne’s grip on her was iron. Panic burrowed its way into her chest, making her lungs tighten and ache. She couldn’t do it; there’d been a mistake. She couldn’t handle the power of the Edelstein and it was going to kill her, _was_ killing her, and it was happening in front of all those people waiting eagerly for Spring.

“Annika. Annika!” Lieanne’s voice, calling her name through a haze of pain and terror. _Lieanne! I’m sorry. I’m sorry and I missed you and I lo—_. “It’s all right, Annika. Don’t fight it. You can do this. You only have to relax.”

The heat had stopped descending and now rested at the center of her chest. Annika took a deep, shuddering breath, before the heat burst inside of her like fireworks. She gasped and jerked back, her eyes flying open. Tears leaked at the corners as she tried to catch her breath.

“Annika?” Lieanne said. For the first time tonight, she didn’t look cold or distant, but worried. One of her hands had a firm grasp on Annika’s elbow. “Are you all right?”

“I—” Annika swallowed, then blinked a few times. “I’m fine.”

She was _more_ than fine, actually. The pain from a moment before was but a memory. Her whole body was buzzing with an energy that threatened to spill out of her if she didn’t use it. Closing her eyes again for a moment, she brought up her hands and pressed the palms to her chest. The Edelstein pulsed gently in response, like a second heartbeat. Then she opened her arms wide, letting the magic course through her arms, her hands, and flow out of her fingertips. Sunlight flooded the Throne Hall, as grass and flowers sprang from under the guests’ feet, covering the copper-colored floor entirely. Everyone cheered, and Annika’s name was chanted over and over again, until it didn’t sound like a name but like the roar of a giant creature, making the very air in the Throne Hall vibrate with it. 

_Annika! Annika! The Spring Witch!_

\---

After the ritual, Annika found herself having a hard time keeping track of everything around her. The colors were brighter, the sounds louder, and the pulse of the Edelstein behind her ribs was a source of constant distraction. Königin Alwina clapped her hands and servants brought boards that they set on trestles. In an amount of time so short that it looked like magic, the tables became crowded with food: there were roast pheasants, stuffed larks, saddles of venison roasted with juniper berries, jellied grouse, braised chicken and fennel, whole salmons, brown trouts and poached sturgeons, artichoke hearts, young garden peas, asparagus tips, glazed slices of beet, carrot and leafy spring onions, platters of cheese and crisp lettuces. One table was entirely devoted to desserts, such as rhubarb and apricot compote, strawberry cakes, redcurrant pies and nectarine tarts with whipped cream. Eggs that had been dyed red, symbolizing new life, were placed in the grass under the dancers’ feet, who had to try not to damage them. 

The abundance of choice made Annika’s head spin, so she ended up only taking a glass of apple wine from one of the servants walking around the hall with drinks on silver trays. She took a sip and the apple flavor exploded on her tongue, stronger than anything she’d ever tasted. Unease wormed into her stomach. She felt tipsy, but it couldn’t be from what little alcohol she’d drunk. Was it normal? She looked around the hall for Mareike, but once she’d spotted her talking with Professor Hencke, one of her old teachers from the Akademie, she hesitated, not wanting to give the impression that she couldn’t handle the Edelstein only ten minutes after having received it. 

The Edelstein was powerful magic, of the kind that had made the Lebensbaum grow. The same magic had built the gigantic, impossibly smooth white towers of Rösten, the vast, underground halls of stone of Dunrick, the buildings of Kreuzlingen that merged with the forest so seamlessly it was impossible to tell one from the other. It had created the artificial lake on which a maze of islets held Markstedt’s curiously layered buildings of honey-colored, hard-wearing stone that couldn’t be found anywhere in the Königreich. Once, if the texts from before the Königreich could be believed, magic had allowed people to build cities, to heal with a touch, to control the elements, to talk to the dead or see the future. The Edelstein was, with the barrier itself, the only active source of such power that remained. It was only normal that Annika would feel a little out of sort. 

“Feeling weird?” a voice asked, so close to her that Annika jumped, spilling some of her apple wine on the cuff of her sleeve.

“Sorry,” Heiko said laughingly. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I wasn’t scared,” Annika said. “I was just—”

“Feeling strange, I’m sure,” Heiko said. “It’s perfectly normal.”

“Do you feel that way too, after you take the Edelstein into you?” Annika asked, relieved at being able to discuss the topic without having to bring it up herself. 

“Hmm, I’m sure I don’t feel exactly the way you do right now,” Heiko said. The glow of the sunlight over his head made his earrings of citrine stone gleam and the skin on his cheekbones look like it had been dusted with gold. “From what I’ve been able to glean by asking a few people, it feels quite different depending on the individual Witch and the Season they deal with. It’s kind of an intimate experience; no one really likes to talk about it at length.” His smile widened suddenly and he added cheekily, “Kind of like discussing sex.”

Annika arched an eyebrow at him. “Somehow, I don’t feel like you’re all that shy about sex.”

He laughed. “No, I’m not. You know how it is with us Witches. Sex helps us replenish the energy we need for our task.”

It was generally recommended that Witches should take lovers, and Annika caught the glance that Heiko cast at a young man with curly brown hair— Aayden Flügel, who was notoriously his lover—but it was a recommendation that Mareike tended to turn up her nose at, so she hadn’t discussed it much. Annika had fooled around with some of the girls and boys at Frühlingstgarten during her years of apprenticeship, but she hadn’t given any thought about taking a long-term lover as the Spring Witch.

“Do you have anyone in mind?” Heiko asked.

“Why, are you offering?” she retorted, which made him laugh again. 

“I’m flattered,” he said, “but you’re not exactly my type. Although, we _are_ going to kiss in a few months.”

He meant at the Summer Solstice, when it was time for Spring to give way to Summer, and for Annika to pass on the Edelstein to Heiko. Annika felt a sudden, foreign pang of possessiveness at the idea. Did she really have to give up the power she could feel coursing through her veins? It made everything feel more real, as though the world around her had been covered by a blanket until now. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the thought. Her face was very hot. She thought of kissing Heiko at the Summer Solstice and it made other parts of her feel hot.

“Looking forward to it,” she forced out. “If you’ll excuse me…”

“Are you all right?” he asked with a frown.

“Yes, yes. I’m just… I need some peace and quiet for a moment.”

She walked across the hall, aiming for one of the shadowed recesses in the walls, but someone stepped in her path. “Jungfer Annika! Please accept my congratulations.”

A young blond woman, whose blue dress trimmed with yellow marked as a representative from the Stamm Weyrauch in Markstedt, bent the knee in a deep curtsy. Her neckline was cut very low and it made an already flustered Annika blush even harder. Her blood sang with the power of the Edelstein and it heated every part of her in a way that was feeling more and more sexual. 

“Please, stand up,” Annika said to the young woman, who seemed to have been waiting for Annika’s cue before she abandoned her bowed posture. “I don’t demand that level of civility. You do me too much honor.”

“You’re the Spring Witch,” said the young woman, waving a hand at the grass they were treading on. One red egg was nestled in the grass between them and she playfully poked it with the tip of her shoe.

“Only for a time,” Annika said. “But I fear that you have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

“I’m Konstanze, Jungfer,” the woman said. “Konstanze Weyrauch, obviously,” she added with a smile.

Despite the deference of her curtsy a moment before, she looked at Annika straight in the eye as she spoke, with none of the awed attitude Annika had gotten from the servants in the Lebensbaum. Konstanze’s gaze was frank and her smile a little mischievous. She had a lovely heart-shaped face, rosy cheeks and clear eyes with long eyelashes. She looked like a fleshier, healthier Lieanne—the thought sprang on Annika unexpectedly and she pushed it down with a flare of shame. 

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Konstanze,” Annika said, trying not to betray what had just crossed her mind. “I don’t think we’ve ever met, but your name rings a bell. Were you at the Akademie? But no, I have a good memory for faces. I would’ve remembered you.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have the gift of life, but my younger brother was at the Akademie with you. His name is Vinzenz.”

“Oh, right, Vinzenz!” Annika said, her memory conjuring up the image of a short, stout boy who laughed a lot. “How is he doing?”

Konstanze shared news of her brother Vinzenz, who worked now in textiles as a Weaver, using magic to create fabrics. As she spoke of a topic obviously dear to her heart, Konstanze’s countenance relaxed until Annika could almost feel as if she were talking to a friend. Like her brother, Konstanze smiled and laughed freely, her eyes crinkling at the corners when she did. Annika noticed that cute freckles dusted her nose, and that her lips were plump and cherry red. The cut of her dress made it impossible to not notice her cleavage and the soft swell of her breasts. Annika’s concentration was flickering and her stomach fluttered intermittently. She felt appallingly out of control, but was afraid of moving or speaking up to excuse herself, unsure of what would happen if she tried. 

“And then Vinzenz said to my father, who isn’t the most creative of men—” Konstanze cut herself off and raised big blue eyes at Annika. “Are you all right, Jungfer? You look a little flushed.”

“I’m—” 

Konstanze rested her finger lightly on Annika’s wrist and Annika’s skin prickled at the contact. Her pulse raced under Konstanze’s fingertips. At the same time, she started wondering at the woman’s behavior. Did she merely want to share news of her brother? To talk to the new Spring Witch? Heiko had asked Annika if she had a lover in her sights. Was it what Konstanze was after? Annika wouldn’t be the Spring Witch forever, but her gift of life would always be sought after. She’d been born a Holzhausen, but by becoming the Spring Witch she’d given up her last name. She could go back to her birth Stamm once her time as the Spring Witch was over, but she didn’t have to. She could get adopted in another Stamm or marry into it. Markstedt, where Konstanze was from, was the Stadt which suffered the most from the weakening of magic inside the Königreich. The weather there was unstable, and the lake the city was built on was getting drier every year—since it was magical in nature, it wasn’t a problem that could be solved through mundane means. A former Spring Witch would be a wonderful addition to the Stamm Weyrauch.

All those thoughts flashed through Annika’s mind in an instant, but the expression on her face must have showed at least some of it, because Konstanze withdrew her hand and her smile dimmed a fraction. “I apologize for being forward, Jungfer,” she said, her tone having recovered some of her previous formality. 

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Annika said. Her mouth was dry and she swallowed to bring some moisture to it. “I’m just feeling a little out of sort.”

“Maybe we should find a quiet place to sit,” Konstanze suggested.

The twinkle was back in her eyes, and even though she found it hard to think clearly, Annika understood what was being offered. There was no doubt that she, or at least her body, _wanted_ it. Her arousal pulsed through her in waves and it was getting difficult to focus on anything else. But she was wary of the strings that could be attached to what would otherwise be an ephemeral bit of fun, and she didn’t trust her current state of mind to make that decision. 

“I don’t think I’m fit for company at the moment,” Annika said with an apologetical smile. “But it was delightful to meet you. Please carry my good wishes to your brother.”

To her credit, Konstanze took the rebuttal with grace. She smiled, made a smaller version of the curtsy she’d done before, and left. Once alone, Annika hurried toward the recess that she’d seen before, afraid someone else would try to talk to her again. Half of the opening that had been cut into the wood was covered by the green-and-gold banner of Kreuzlingen. Annika flicked the banner aside and bowed her head to enter. 

It was of course dark inside, but a nook in the wall contained a candle that shed flickering light. The recess was deeper than it looked from the outside, and a bench had been carved in the wall and fitted with plump cushions. Unfortunately, someone was already sitting on the bench, and that someone was Lieanne. 

“I’m sorry,” Annika blurted out. “I didn’t know where you were there. I was only looking for—”

“Don’t fret, I know that you have no desire for my company,” Lieanne said.

Annika had been about to turn around and walk away, but the bitterness in Lieanne’s voice gave her pause. “That’s not true,” she said, feeling unreasonably stung; she’d given Lieanne every reason to believe that.

“Isn’t it?” was Lieanne’s predictable response. The wavering candlelight painted her face in yellow and orange and made her eyes gleam like two precious gems. “Why did you stop writing me, then? Why didn’t you answer my last letters, not even once, not even to tell that you had tired of me or… Was I so beneath your attention? Because I wasn’t your equal, even though we were both destined to be Witches?”

It took Annika a moment to understand what Lieanne meant, because the difference in their births wasn’t something she ever thought about. Lieanne had been born from a commoner’s family in Carnwick and not from one of the Stämme like Annika. She’d always worked hard to prove herself and this was something Annika admired about her. The thought that Lieanne had assumed that her silence was because she looked down on Lieanne’s background felt like a stab to Annika’s heart.

“No,” she said. “No, this isn’t why… I’ve never thought that. This has never mattered to me at all.”

“Then _why_?” Lieanne asked. She sounded strained from the effort not to raise her voice. “Will you at least tell me why?”

“Lieanne,” Annika said helplessly.

She should be leaving at once; she shouldn’t be having this conversation when her mind was foggy and her thoughts so sluggish, especially not when her reasons for not writing to Lieanne anymore were so tangled and complex that they weren’t even clear to herself. Could she tell Lieanne how the Spring Court spoke of the Winter Court? How could she explain that she’d kept hearing from Mareike, from some of the aides and the servants, even from Lotte herself, that Winter dried out a Witch’s soul? She’d spent many sleepless nights imagining her dear Lieanne growing cold and indifferent to her, the way everybody said she would. She’d replayed the kiss they’d shared the night before they’d both been sent to their respective Courts, huddled together in Annika’s bed, and had contrasted it with the cruel image of a Lieanne whose heart had frozen and become insensitive. Annika’s nascent feelings had struggled with that fear for months, before she’d decided to cut ties of her own accord. 

“I was a coward,” Annika finally said. “I was afraid of too many things and certain of nothing, not even of you. We were apart for so long and I was scared that when we would meet again, you would look at me with indifference. I couldn’t stand that thought.”

“But I never gave you any reason to believe that,” Lieanne said in a wounded voice. The air in the recess had gotten so cold that it stung Annika’s cheeks. “Did you even read my letters?”

Annika hadn’t been able to bear reading the last few letters. She’d been afraid of Lieanne’s hurt, of her anger, but most of all she’d been terrified that all she would find in those letters would be a dismissal, Lieanne telling her that she was now realizing how silly she’d been to waste time on her relationship with Annika. 

“This isn’t anything you did,” Annika said, stepping closer to where Lieanne was sitting. “This is all on me and my own stupid fears. I’m so sorry if I caused you hurt. Please, forgive me.”

On an impulse she dropped to her knees at Lieanne’s feet. She took Lieanne’s hands, which felt much warmer than they had during the ritual. Their warmth made the new, unnatural heat in Annika’s body thrum in response and she couldn’t contain a shudder.

“Are you feeling all right?” Lieanne said, pressing the back of her fingers against Annika’s forehead. “Storm and thunder, you’re burning up!”

The concern in her voice brought tears to Annika’s eyes. This wasn’t the cold indifference she’d endlessly agonized about—this was her own beloved Lieanne, whom she’d abandoned. 

“I’m fine,” she said, unable to help herself from leaning into Lieanne’s touch. “It’s only the Edelstein. It’s making me feel a little… strange. But it doesn’t hurt.”

“When I first took the Edelstein in me, I felt like a ton of stones had been dropped on my shoulders,” Lieanne said. “I stumbled, and would’ve fallen if Neele hadn’t caught me.”

After the ritual, Lieanne had been gripping her elbow. She must have done it to prevent her from falling. Despite her frosty greeting, she’d still cared enough about Annika to do that. 

“I’m so sorry,” Annika said. She laid her head on Lieanne’s lap. The satin felt smooth and cool under her cheek. “I’m so, so sorry.”

She felt Lieanne’s stomach rise with a sudden breath. Her fingers on Annika’s face stilled. “It’s all right,” she said, her voice a little strangled. “Maybe you should go rest in your room. You’ve done your part for tonight.”

“I don’t want to sleep.”

She wasn’t tired at all, was actually the opposite of tired. The desire she’d felt during her conversation with Konstanze had heightened in Lieanne’s presence to the point of being unbearable, but this time she didn’t want to resist it. Her chest was pressed against Lieanne’s knees and her breasts felt sensitive, her nipples hard and tender. She ached between her legs.

She raised her head from Lieanne’s lap and said, “I’m feeling so very strange. Lieanne, Lieanne, help me.”

“Annika,” Lieanne said. “I don’t think—"

Annika didn’t give her the time to repeat her injunction about going to bed before she kissed her. She’d half-expected resistance, anger, for Lieanne to push her away and command Annika to never approach her again. Instead, Lieanne made a sound from deep in her chest and her arms wrapped around Annika’s waist, helping her haul herself on Lieanne’s lap. Their first kiss from years ago had been hesitant, gentle, softly exploring. This one was ardent with repressed desire that had built up over the years. Annika’s hands roamed over Lieanne’s shoulders, her breasts, her waist, feeling the scratchy sensation of embroideries under her hands—snowflakes, her exploring fingers told her, sewn on the bodice of Lieanne’s dress, each unique in its design. Lieanne’s scent was of cold and crisp pine forest, with a hint of cinnamon. Annika’s lips left Lieanne’s mouth to press kisses over the soft, sensitive skin of her neck, relishing every little gasp she managed to wrench out of her. 

“Annika,” Lieanne said in a breath that ended with a hitch. “Annika, Annika.”

Annika shifted her position on Lieanne’s lap to get closer, until their chests were pressed together and she could feel Lieanne’s heartbeat. The fabric of their dresses swished as they moved against each other, and Annika grew frustrated by the presence of their clothing, which hindered their access to naked skin. Lieanne’s fingers slipped under the collar of Annika’s dress, stripping one of her shoulders bare. Her touch left trails of goosebumps on Annika’s skin, fanning the flames of the fire that burned at the pit of her stomach. Her breathing was growing ragged as pleasure rushed through her in waves of increasing intensity. Lieanne cupped her face and captured her mouth again, her tongue tracing Annika’s lower lip. The feeling of their tongues sliding against each other made Annika’s mind go blank. She gasped and pressed her legs together to contain the pleasure that pulsed between them, breathing harshly as she buried her face in the crook of Lieanne’s neck.

“Did you just… come?” Lieanne asked incredulously.

Her orgasm had cleared some of the fog in Annika’s mind, and she felt back to herself enough to be embarrassed. “I… yes. Light, I’m sorry, this is—”

“Because of the Edelstein, yes,” Lieanne said in a suddenly cool voice, pulling out of Annika’s embrace. She pushed her gently until Annika had slipped off her lap and was sitting next to her on the bench. “Don’t worry, I understand.”

“What?” Annika asked, confused for a moment until she understood that Lieanne thought Annika’s behavior to be entirely on account of the surge of power from the Edelstein, and that anyone else would have been just as suitable. “No, Lieanne, you don’t understand at all.”

“I really think you should go to bed, now.”

“Not until you listen to me.” Annika took Lieanne’s hands again and pressed them against her heart. Lieanne’s expression was hard to read in the unreliable light of the lone candle. “I wouldn’t have been so… free with myself if it hadn’t been for the Edelstein, that’s true, but I meant all of it. Every kiss, every touch. I wouldn’t have done it with anyone else.”

“You don’t have to pretend, Annika,” Lieanne said in a tired, resigned voice. She looked toward the half-oval of light from the Throne Hall. Laughter and music reached them as though from a very great distance. “It’s all right. I’m not sixteen years old anymore. My heart can take it.”

“I’m not pretending!” Annika breathed to get her racing heart under control. It was only fair that Lieanne would doubt her now; Annika had done this to herself, and if she couldn’t convince Lieanne of her earnestness, then it would be nothing that she didn’t deserve. “You have every right to not want me in your life and in your bed. I have done you grievous harm, and I couldn’t blame you if you never forgave me. But hear me when I say that I’ve never forgotten you. That I’ve never not missed you. And that if what happened right now is the only time I can ever have you, then I shall not regret a second of it.”

She traced the apple of Lieanne’s cheek with her thumb and then let it drop so it rested on her lips. Lieanne’s eyes had the clear and polished look of the moonstones she wore around her neck. She released a breath that warmed the pad of Annika’s thumb, then kissed it. 

“I’m so weak for you,” she said in a whisper. “I steeled myself as hard as I could in anticipation of meeting you today, but I should have known better than to try.”

“I’ve missed you,” Annika said. She took away her thumb so she could kiss Lieanne on the mouth. “So much. The fact that the distance between us was partly of my own doing did nothing to soothe the hurt.”

Lieanne’s arm tentatively rose to loop around her shoulders and Annika let herself lean against her side.

“All hail the Spring Witch,” Lieanne murmured against her hair, and Annika burst out laughing, exhausted and relieved. 

From the Throne Hall, she heard the exclamations of the guests as many more flowers bloomed all over the grass.

**Author's Note:**

> Using German as the model for the 'old tongue' in this universe was done for several reasons, but I hope that it didn't throw anyone out of the story. Any remaining mistakes are mine, but I have to thank my friend M. for her help with the German. I hope I made the meanings of the various words I used clear in the context of this universe, but here is a glossary of the words in German for the non-German speakers who are curious about them:
> 
> \- Edelstein: gem, jewel  
> \- ehrwürdig(e): venerable  
> \- Einzelfluss: the "single river"  
> \- Finsternis: darkness  
> \- Frau: woman, wife  
> \- Frühlingsgarten: "spring garden"  
> \- Haupt: head  
> \- Herbstlaub: autumn leaves, autumn foliage  
> \- Jungfer: maiden  
> \- Königreich: kingdom  
> \- König, Königin: king, queen  
> \- Lebensbaum: tree of life  
> \- Stadt, Städte (pl.): town, city  
> \- Stamm, Stämme (pl.): trunk, stem, tribe, lineage  
> \- Sommerfeld: "summer field"  
> \- Rat: council  
> \- Vater: father  
> \- Weise: wise


End file.
